Regional Media Training on the International Criminal Court

Beirut, Lebanon, 12-13 March 2009

Justice Without Frontiers, in partnership with NPWJ, organised a Media Training on the International Criminal Court in Beirut on 12-13 March 2009. This two day event attracted approximately twenty members of the media from several countries in the region, including Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan, as well as Lebanon.
 
The training was composed of brief presentations by panel members on various aspects of the ICC, which were followed by discussions and all participants were actively engaged throughout the event. Questions touched on technical aspects of the Court as well as on several topics raised in previous meetings, including the perception in the region of the politicisation and selectivity of the Court and of international institutions in general.
 
This activity aimed at increasing the capacity of the media to report on ICC-related issues, including on international criminal justice more generally, and the creation of an informal network of media professionals in the region, both of which were possible due to the realisation of the assumption that international criminal justice issues would continue to be relevant to the media in the region, who would also continue to be willing to work on those issues.
 
At the conclusion of the meeting, the participants agreed to form themselves into an informal information-sharing group, to facilitate exchanges of information among themselves and with their colleagues and made various recommendations, including as to future trainings that could be held, the organisation of a visit for journalists to the ICC and for the translation into Arabic of various documents related to the ICC.
 
Program